1. Field
One or more embodiments of the present invention relate to an electrolyte additive for a lithium battery, an electrolyte including the electrolyte additive, and a lithium battery including the electrolyte.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the advances in the field of small high-tech devices such as digital cameras, mobile devices, laptops, and personal computers, there has been a sharp increase in demand for lithium batteries as energy sources. Also, with the spread of electric vehicles, safe lithium batteries for electric vehicles are under development.
Lithium batteries operate at a high driving voltage because they have a higher energy density per unit weight than those of comparable lead storage batteries, nickel-cadmium (Ni—Cd) batteries, nickel-hydrogen batteries, and nickel-zinc batteries. Such lithium batteries cannot be used safely or effectively with an aqueous electrolyte having high reactivity to lithium, and thus a nonaqueous organic electrolyte is used together with a polar aprotic organic solvent for the nonaqueous organic electrolyte.
The nonaqueous organic electrolyte may be decomposed by reacting with a negative or positive electrode during charging and/or discharging, or may be spontaneously, thermally decomposed. The decomposition of the nonaqueous organic electrolyte may cause heat generation in a battery or even an explosion of the battery, which may occur when the amount of released heat is smaller than the amount of generated heat. Such a situation may occur more frequently (or may be more likely to occur) in larger batteries.